Take Away

Tony is a fish 'n' chip shop owner with a cleanliness fetish, and Trev is a hygienically challenged purveyor of hamburgers. Like bream and bacon, the two could not be less compatible. Which is fine, given that their respective takeaway shops are in direct competition.

Fine, that is, until an expansionist rival, Burgies - imagine a blend of McDonald's and KFC - opens next door. "Those that stand in our way will be crushed," says the evil Burgies manager. In fact he's uber-evil, as if director/producer Marc Gracie replied yes when asked, "Would you like extra evil with that, sir?"

This is one of my concerns with Take Away: that all the characters are overly straightforward. Most are simple and unchanging; those whose personalities develop do so in a way usually foreseeable.

Perhaps it's just that Australia has produced such a glut of underdog comedies in recent years (The Man Who Sued God, Crackerjack, The Honourable Wally Norman), but the plot is predictable too, a didactic Davo-and-Goliath story with the works. Confronted by a common enemy, Trev and Tony must unite and fight. It's as if, having worked with Gracie on TV's Totally Full Frontal, writers Mark O'Toole and Dave O'Neil had a cute idea for a recipe, then skimped on the ingredients.

Compare it with The Castle, the hit which set the benchmark for underdog comedies. Its compelling characters included an imprisoned son, engaged daughter and incompetent lawyer. Even the minor characters had dreams, desires and insecurities. Hence they were compelling. In Take Away, by contrast, Rose Byrne and Nathan Phillips play the employees of Tony and Trev, but details of their lives are sketchy.

Similarly, the setting is vague. The film doesn't specify whether Trev and Tony have their shops in the country or the city. A sense of place would have helped anchor the story. The Castle yielded satisfying surprises partly because it was firmly rooted; Take Away is vague.

Fortunately, there are positives. Gracie, who has directed TV comedy and produced the Jimeoin film The Craic, directs with confidence and style. And the performances are consistently strong. As sloppy yob Trev, Stephen Curry is likeable and amusing. As his nemesis-cum-ally Tony, Vince Colosimo is typically dependable, as are Byrne and Phillips.

The ambitious, symbolic ending is well-executed and apt. But the best sequence of all opens the film. A quirky look at the history of fish 'n' chips, with Nicholas Bell and Francis Greenslade, it is funny because it is risky and inventive. The rest of Take Away's plot would have benefited from more such risk-taking and invention.